As I remember it, when Reagan was in power in the 80s, he was HORRIBLE for America [except for the wealthy], because that was when the rich started getting even more excessively richer with his decision that ‘TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS’ would help all Americans. However, that is when the middle class started its economic decline which caused us to lose financial ground to the point of stagnation [even if we managed to get a raise at work, it wasn't even enough to keep ahead of any cost of living increases].

Moreover, with each successive congress from Reagan’s time forward continually destroying ALL financial regulations [remember during the 2008 GE when McCain stated, "I voted with W over 90% of the time on DE-regulation"- he was so PROUD of that], we, the middle class didn’t stand a chance to grow economically since we could barely manage with the income we tried to make go further and further, all the while watching the upper crust getting wealthier to the point of ’so much excess’ it would cause one [who was/is middle class] to question where they went so terribly wrong in life since they were only ‘treading water’ financially.

The GOP are insane and should be put in their place permanently. They didn’t give the Dems a voice over the last 8 years, so the Dems need to give them that same teeatment particularly in regards to their so-called Budget – the Road to Recovery!

What a joke they have become from M. Steele to M. Bachmann and Boehner, Cantor, McConnell and Gingrich. They’re all just like Palin – no thought or ideas, just ‘memorization of cliches and old talking points’. JOKES just aren’t going to work with the American public anymore – we are no longer in a laughing mood!

Now should everyone knows that we have been running a huge trade deficits with most of our foreign trading partners for the last 20-30 years, so that sector of the economy is a negative value on our economy overall.

Consumers are not spending because there is very little credit, their wages have gone down and the uncertainty of their future employment. These factors have caused consumer spending to plummet like a ball falling off the table; so that is a negative on our economy

Industry is facing the same problems as consumers with the added pressure of falling sales.

So now that just leaves the Government. It has been pointed out earlier on this thread that the Republicans turned the economic surplus into the largest deficit in history. Deficits are not always a bad thing for the government to have, but when you run up a deficit buying things that go boom and then they are gone causes problems. Spending on things that will last 20, 30, 40 or 70 years and we will get value out of them is a bad thing. The Government must spend and spend a lot of to keep the negative downturn manageable and eventually Industry and Consumers will start to spend money again, but if sales continue to fall and more people lose their jobs the economic turn-around could be a time coming.

So from a logical stand-point the Government is the only sector in the economy that spend the money to help the downturn become less devastating and lay the ground-work for a speedy recovery once the other sectors start spending again.

It is amazing to hear the Republicans labelled “corrupt” when Democrats were already so corrupt that during the Revolutionary War, they went for a deal that was later written into the Constitution. Basically it was for every five slaves a Democrat owned, he would get three extra votes. When the first Republican president was elected, Democrats appointed their own Democrat as president, Jefferson Davis, and started a civil war, not over economic philosophies or slavery, so much as over outrage that an upstart political party could bump them out of the White House. During that war, Democratic bigwigs maintained a policy to create extermination camps in the South to kill off captured Republicans and abolitionists. My great grandfather was an abolitionist captured and put in one of those camps. Like you would expect of any death camp, there were guard dogs, but not like you’d expect, these dogs were there to prevent escape, but to protect the camp’s rats from being eaten by the prisoners. My great grandfather and his friends killed and ate the guard dog and then ate the rats. The Democratic party has had over two centuries in which to grow and fester in corruption. The Republicans lag way behind.

When the Florida “hanging chads” issue started I told everyone this meant a Democratic congress because their push to eliminate the physical evidence of voting meant the Democrats had found a way to hack electronic voting machines. That was when our economy was set up by a Democratic congress to tank, not during a Republican watch. Reaganomics and a strong economy had meant that more and more people voted Republican. Democrats get more votes when the economy is bad and people are hurting.

Democrats are sick and tired of Reagan prosperity and want to make sure this time it never happens again. First the Democrats shoot our economy in the leg and then give it a rubber crutch, the stimulus package, which contains protectionist provisions and govenment programs like those that prolonged the 1930’s depression for as long as the Democrats could keep in power.

BROOKS: The problem with them and the problem with Limbaugh in terms of intellectual philosophy is they are stuck with Reagan. They are stuck with the idea that government is always the problem

- – What GOP’ers conveniently leave out from Reagan’s 1981 inaugural address is “in this present crisis,” is what precedes his assertion that “government isn’t the solution yo your problems, government IS the problem.”

That gives it a whole different meaning. Imagine, GOP’ers cherry-picking.”

It took me a second, but I then realized that it must have been the Iranian hostage situation to which Reagan was referring, as “in this present crisis,” which the U.S. government under President Jimmy Carter had been incapable of resolving, no matter what his administration tried.

Shortly after Reagan made this statement in his inaugural address the Iranian government (Ayatollah Khomeini) released the hostages.

This statement by Reagan in his inaugural address and the almost immediate release of the hostages leads me to believe that the Republicans DID cut a deal with the Ayatollah, going behind the back of the Carter administration, undercutting their efforts to get the hostages released, prolonging the time the hostages were held, and eventually leading to the Iran/Contra scandal.

In other words, the culture of corruption and demonic/demented political strategies Republicans used the Iranian hostage situation to enhance their chances of beating the Democrats in 1980 by negotiating behind the scenes with the people holding our citizens hostage over in Iran…to try to block the Iranians from working out a deal with the Carter administration.

Thus, Reagan’s “veiled” statement in his inaugural address and the subsequent release of the hostages shortly after Reagan had been sworn in (within hours). Coincidence? Hardly. Typical corrupt conservative Republican anti-American machinations? Definitely. Can our liberal democracy stand much more of this conservative Republican madness? Could any country?

*) they’ve turned the Clinton boom into a bust which has already taken the market back to the 1st Clinton term

*) They’ve taken a government which was running at a surplus and shown it to be evil by changing the surplus to the largest deficit in history.

*) They’ve learned Enron accounting techniques allowing them to take the invasions of Iran and Afghanistan off the books.

*) They’ve managed to redefine “war” to include anything they don’t like.

*) Despite years of saying the economy is strong and there was no economic slowdown, they’ve finally admitted that there is a recession. Somehow, this instantaneously acted on all repubs on Jan 20. I can’t figure out why.

First, Ronald Reagan is dead.
_________

So is the GOOP.

I’m sure he’ll say something foolish in the near future, especially if Boss Limbaugh come down hard on the dissenters in the GOP.

No David, this is EXACTLY what the republicans want to do.
They are willing to sacrifice the economic well-being of the United States of America and drive the entire world into a depression in order to get back into power.

Republicans are SELFISH BASTARDS!

That would pretty much be my assessment, too.

The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com

Government turns out to be the only solution to the problems created by treating government as the problem.

Perry, I just looked it up.
That IS the very definition of IRONY.

Who woulda thought Raygun was so prescient. Go figure.

Our economy was taken off the road and put on a mountain, without a road over the last 8 years. In fact, the policies of the bush administration caused us to awaken every hibernating bear for miles around, and allowed the gas station to put ifferior tires and products on our car at the last visit, due to lowered corporate regulations. This has set a stage for our car to now be traveling up hill, on mountainous terrain, with inferior tires, etc, and a pack of wild hungry , angry, bears chasing us.
And the REpublitroids wish to not have the government spend any more money to get us out of the mess they got us into. I say, throw them from the car and let the bears get a feeding.